Anti-Utopia

Films suggested by Friends in the area of anti-Utopia: films showing grand social schemes gone wrong and fictional dictatorships with more than a slight resemblance to real ones.

Peaceweb's Movies with a Conscience

Last updated: November 20, 1997

1984

UK, 1984, Drama, D:Michael Radford, Original book: by George Orwell, Stars: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Susannah Hamilton, 110 m
After an atomic war, the world is carved up between three empires. London, the capital of Oceania, is ruled by a dictatorship which has total control over its citizens. Winston Smith, a bureaucrat, tries to escape with his lover, Julia.

Blade Runner

USA, 1982, Drama, D:Ridley Scott, Stars: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, 117 m
Deckard, an L.A. cop in the year 2019, has the job of hunting and terminating replicants, sophisticated robots who have escaped a space colony and have infiltrated earth.

France, 1967, Drama, D:Francois Truffaut, Stars: Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, Cheryl Cusack, Original book: by Ray Bradbury, 111 m
Truffaut's only film in English, the film portrays a civilization where all books are banned.

Handmaid's Tale, The

USA/Germany, 1990, Drama, D:Volker Schlondorff, Stars: Robert Duvall, Elizabeth McGovern, Faye Dunaway, Original book: by Margaret Atwood, 109 m
In a right-wing fundamentalists successor state to the shattered United States, a woman who has been reduced to a reproductive slave of a rich military family, joins a rebellion.

Lord of the Flies

USA, 1990, Drama, D:Harry Hook, Original book: by William Golding, 90 m
British schoolboys, shipwrecked on an island, are divided. Half follow the civilized, rational Ralph and half follow Jack, the leader of the tribe of militarists.

Mosquito Coast, The

USA, 1986, Drama, D:Peter Weir, Stars: Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, River Phoenix, Original book: by Paul Theroux, 117 m
An iconoclastic environmentalist and inventor moves his family from the United States to Central America, where he becomes the autocrat of his household empire.

Olvidados, Los

Mexico, 1950, B&W, Drama, D:Luis Bunuel, Stars: Alfonso Mejia, Jesus Navarro, Estela Inda, 80 m
A young man named Pedro is led astray by a gang of youths in the festering slums of Mexico City.